Contents

According to Julius Pokorný, the ethnonym Venetī (singular *Venetos) is derived from Proto Indo-European root *wen- 'to strive; to wish for, to love'. As shown by the comparative material, Germanic languages had two terms of different origin: Old High GermanWinida 'Wende' points to Pre-Germanic*Wenétos, while Lat.-Germ. Venedi (as attested in Tacitus) and Old English Winedas 'Wends' call for Pre-Germanic *Wenetós. Etymologically related words include Latin venus, -eris 'love, passion, grace'; Sanskrit vanas- 'lust, zest', vani- 'wish, desire'; Old Irish fine (< Proto-Celtic *venjā) 'kinship, kinfolk, alliance, tribe, family'; Old Norse vinr, Old Saxon, Old High German wini, Old Frisian, Old English wine 'friend'.[2]

Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) at one point mentions the Veneti of the Adriatic (Histories V.9) and at another refers in passing to the "Eneti in Illyria" (Histories I.196) whose supposed marriage customs, he claims, mirrored those of the Babylonians.[3] This led early scholars to seek to link the Veneti with the Illyrians.[4] Thus, Karl Pauli, a late 19th-century expert on the Venetic language, declared that the language was more closely related to that of the Illyrians than to any other language, even though knowledge of Venetic is limited to personal names, nouns, and verbs used in dedicatory formulae and there is even fewer remains of an Illyrian language upon which to base his claim.[5] In the first half of the 20th century, this hypothesis was discredited by many other linguists, among them Vittore Pisani and Hans Krahe[6] More recent linguistic and paleontological studies cast further doubt on an Illyrian origin of the Veneti.[7]

Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC) claims that in 4th century BC the Veneti had been so Celticized that they were identical to the Celts except for language.[8][9]

Roman historian Titus Livius (59 BC – AD 17), himself a native of the Venetic town of Patavium, records that after the fall of Troy, the Trojan prince Antenor became the leader of the Paphlagonians after they all had been expelled from their homeland. Together, they migrated to the northern end of the Adriatic coast, where they established a settlement and conquered and merged with indigenous people known as the Euganei.[10] The story connects the Veneti with the Eneti, mentioned by Homer (850 BC).

Virgil (70-19 BC), in his epic the Aeneid, relates the same tradition.[11] A commentary on Virgil's Aeneid by the grammarian Maurus Servius Honoratus (fl. c. AD 400) is said to imply a link between the Veneti and the Vindelici who are related to Liburnians from the Istrian Coast. (However, the reference to the Veneti in Virgil seems to place them in the "innermost realm of the Liburnians" which must have been the goal at which Antenor is said to have arrived. This, thus, only implies that the ancient Liburnians may have once encompassed a wide swath of the Eastern Alps, from Vindelicia, through Noricum, to the Dalmatian coast before the coming of the Veneti.)

The Greek historian Strabo (64 BC–AD 24), on the other hand, conjectured that the Adriatic Veneti descended from Celts who in turn were related to later Celtic tribe of the same name who lived on the Belgian coast and fought against Julius Caesar. He further suggested that the identification of the Adriatic Veneti with the Paphlagonian Enetoi led by Antenor—which he attributes to Sophocles (496–406 BC)—was a mistake due to the similarity of the names.[14] Strabo also gives information on the then-current domains of the Veneti.[15]

The territory of the Veneti came to the notice of the Greeks in the 4th c. BC. Strabo records that Dionysius I of Syracuse (c. 432 – 367 BC), desiring the famed horses of the Veneti, founded trading colonies along the Adriatic coast.[16] The Sicilian tyrant favored the town of Adria[17] as a trading partner, helping it build canals which linked it to the sea and broke the trading monopoly of Spina.[18]

The Veneti had recurring trouble from the Celtic peoples who then occupied most of Northwestern Italy, although with the Cenomani Celts who had settled in the region of Brescia and Verona, and eventually absorbed them, they maintained peaceful relations.

The Veneti seem to have begun contact with Rome in the third century BC. They established amicitia with Rome against the Gauls c. 238 BC.[20] During the Second Punic War, the Veneti were again allied with the Romans against the Celts, Iberians, and the Carthaginian expedition (218-203 BC) led by Hannibal.[21] Livy records that they sent soldiers to fight along with the Romans at the battle of Cannae.

With the foundation of the Latin colony of Aquileia by Rome in 181 BC and laying of the Via Postumia in 148 BC followed by the Via Annia in 131 BC, Roman influence among the Veneti increased. The Veneti seem to have voluntarily and gradually adopted the Latin language, Roman architecture, Roman city planning, and Roman religion. Votive offerings sometimes appear in the Venetic language written with the Roman alphabet or in Venetic with a Latin translation.
Roman consuls were asked to adjudicate border disputes between Este and Padua in 141 and again in 135 BC[22] and also a border dispute between Este and Vicenza.[23] In 175 BC, Padua requested the aid of Rome in putting down a local civil war.[24] The Veneti were given Latin rights after the Social War in the Lex Pompeia de Transpadanis and Roman citizenship in 49 BC in the Lex Roscia. Roman colonies established at Este, Concordia, and Trieste between 49 BC and 14 AD and at Oderzo and Zuglio during the reign of Claudius further contributed to the absorption of the Veneti into Roman culture.[25]

From artifacts, tombs, and religious votive objects, one can gain some idea of Venetic society. There were heads of villages. Among landowners were the wealthy who were buried with amber jewelry. There were horsemen, fishermen, and those involved in animal husbandry. 7th c. BC merchants at Este used bronze coins while by the 3rd c. BC silver money was in use, especially at Padua. Farmers cultivated grain and grape vines. Artisans produced objects of ceramic, pottery, bronze, and engaged in wool-weaving. Artifacts show that among the sports enjoyed were boxing and boat races.[26]

^H. H. Scullard (2002). History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC. p. 16. ... of healing. In the fourth century their culture became so Celticized that Polybius described the second-century Veneti as practically indistinguishable ...

^Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, Book 1, Chapter 1: "Antenor sailed into the furthest part of the Adriatic, accompanied by a number of Enetians who had been driven from Paphlagonia by a revolution and after losing their king Pylaemenes before Troy were looking for a settlement and a leader. The combined force of Enetians and Trojans defeated the Euganei, who dwelt between the sea and the Alps and occupied their land. The place where they disembarked was called Troy, and the name was extended to the surrounding district; the whole nation were called Veneti."

^Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book VI, Chapter 2 - Paphlagonia: "Beyond [the river Billis ]begins the nation of Paphlagonia, by some writers called Pylæmenia; it is closed in behind by the country of Galatia. In it are Mastya, a town founded by the Milesians, and then Cromna, at which spot Cornelius Nepos also places the Heneti, from whom he would have us believe that the Veneti of Italy, who have a similar name, are descended. The city also of Sesamon, now called Amastris, Mount Cytorus, distant sixty-three miles from Tium, the towns of Cimolis and Stephane, and the river Parthenius. The promontory of Carambis, which extends a great distance into the sea, is distant from the mouth of the Euxine three hundred and twenty-five miles, or, according to some writers, three hundred and fifty, being the same distance from the Cimmerian Bosporus, or, as some persons think, only three hundred and twelve miles. There was formerly also a town of the same name, and another near it called Armene; we now find there the colony of Sinope, distant from Mount Cytorus one hundred and sixty-four miles."

^Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book III, Chapter 23 - Istria, its People and Locality.

^Strabo, Geography, Book IV, Chapter 4: "It is these Veneti [the Gallic tribe of the Belgae], I think, who settled the colony that is on the Adriatic (for about all the Celti that are in Italy migrated from the transalpine land, just as did the Boii and Senones), although, on account of the likeness of name, people call them Paphlagonians. I do not speak positively, however, for with reference to such matters probability suffices." Book V, Chapter 1: "Concerning the Heneti there are two different accounts: Some say that the Heneti too are colonists of those Celti of like name who live on the ocean-coast; while others say that certain of the Heneti of Paphlagonia escaped hither with Antenor from the Trojan war, and, as testimony in this, adduce their devotion to the breeding of horses — a devotion which now, indeed, has wholly disappeared, although formerly it was prized among them, from the fact of their ancient rivalry in the matter of producing mares for mule-breeding." Book 13, Chapter 1: "At any rate, Sophocles says that [...] Antenor and his children safely escaped to Thrace with the survivors of the Heneti, and from there got across to the Adriatic Henetice, as it is called."

^ abcWilkes, J. J. The Illyrians, 1992, ISBN0-631-19807-5, page 183,"We may begin with the Venetic peoples, Veneti, Carni, Histri and Liburni, whose language set them apart from the rest of the Illyrians"

^Wilkes, J. J. The Illyrians, 1992, ISBN0-631-19807-5, page 81,"In Roman Pannonia the Latobici and Varciani who dwelt east of the Venetic Catari in the upper Sava valley were Celtic but the Colapiani of the Colapis (Kulpa) valley were Illyrians"

^Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy by Richard Duncan-Jones,2002, page 164,"... This allowed the city to draw on the Carni and Catali (tribes `attributed' to Tergeste by Augustus) for new supplies of ..."